Heat-resistant and heatable liquid containers are essential to the enjoyment of many consumable foods and beverages, such as hot tea, coffee, soups, and boiled solid foods such as pastas, eggs, cereal grains, meats, and vegetables. However, such containers are typically formed of a rigid material to allow them to be held and to sit on a flat surface without spilling. Furthermore, many structural features that are typically desired in such containers, such as handles, spouts, and a broad, perhaps rounded midsection (as is common for a tea kettle, for example) with narrower top and bottom sections to minimize a surface area-to-volume ratio to promote heat retention, are at the same time undesirable for storage compactness. Such containers do not lend themselves to stacked nesting, and their generally convex wall profile typically lacks a mating counterpart among other containers of the same or different type, resulting in much unusable storage space inside and adjacent each container.
A need therefore exists for heat-resistant and heatable liquid containers that are suitable for holding hot consumable and cooking fluids; self-supporting and stable when placed on a flat surface, when carried, and when tilted for pouring; and compact when stored.